Expectations
I don’t really know what to expect from this. The only thing I’m fairly sure of is that this won’t be a full game the way that FFX and FFX-2 were. Maybe it’ll be a movie like “Eternal Calm,” or a playable epilogue, or even something larger, like a “Chapter 6” that’ll have me move through Spira one last time. We’ll see.
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Introduction
-I like the sketch of YRP on the title screen.
-I also like the variant on this music.
-“New Game.” So definitely a game, not a movie.
-Yuna in the Luca stadium, alone.
-hi birdie! Cute but weird looking bird.
-She seems sad. Perhaps sad that the gullwings are breaking up?
-Rikku busts in. Carrying a letter of some sort.
-Hm. Yuna got a copy of this letter too. Mysterious letter.
RIKKU: “It’s been so long, Yunie! How are you?” How long I wonder? I guess the Gullwings have been split up for a while.
-hahaha, Rikku’s joy is infectious.
-The letter is like sending them on a scavenger hunt in the stadium.
-Paine is here too, also got a letter. Mysterious!
-Three months apart.
-Paine was the first to depart.
-It’s great to see them together. They’re all so happy to be together.
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The Celsius
-Brother and Buddy are away. Good.
-They read the letter. “Travel to Iutycyr.”
-The letter just says to reach the top and there’ll be something worth seeing. Iutycyr Tower. A recently-discovered ruined tower.
-Hee, we’re taking the Celsius and flying off without Brother. GOOD.
-YRP flies off again. Woohoo!!
-Title screen as the Celsius takes flight. Last Mission.
-Neat! So this is going to be like one of those DLC packs games sometimes have.
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Outside Iutycyr Tower
-The tower is HUGE! It looks a bit like Cleyra in FFIX, a mix of tower and tree.
-The letter says to reach the top “by powers yours and yours alone.” That means no flying straight to the top.
-I can’t access a status screen so far. Not sure if I’ll keep my levels from my recent playthrough of FFX-2 or start fresh.
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Tutorial
-Okay. Tutorial. I am fresh off of X-2, but learned my lesson from X-2’s version of blitzball not to take anything for granted. Let’s read through this.
-Character actions within the tower are turn-based – but it seems like it’s not FFX-style turns, but rather the kind of turns where you can move around the map by turns? Maybe?
-The tutorial makes this seem like it’ll be RTS-style combat.
-The levels of the tower change each time. Who got Diablo in my FF?
-There are barriers between rooms that enemies can’t cross, and I can use them to escape.
-There are dresspheres hidden within the tower. So this is starting fresh, not using my dresspheres or levels from X-2. Sounds good.
-Some controls are self-explanatory. Others are not. For instance, [A + Move = Move without picking up item.]
-Dresses have HP. Hm.
-I can layer dresspheres!
-Is this an overhead view?
-Minimap will show items, enemies… and traps?? This sounds like it’s gonna be wild.
-I can hold up to 20 of an item max.
-Dresses have a certain HP and can be destroyed when that HP reaches zero.
-Folios are a new item type that can be used a certain number of times based on the number of pages in the folio.
-“Accessories are synthesized from auto-abilities.” I’m not sure what that means. I’ll probably understand it in context.
-Up to five dresses can be “layered.”
-The base dress (first dress in the layer) has more impact than the support dresses. Support dresses add half the dress’s stats, and can use the dress’s generic abilities but not the unique abilities. Sounds a bit FFV-ish.
-It suggests taking off a favored dress if it’s about to break. I wonder if that means I can “heal” or repair dresses.
-Abilities use MP, and each ability has a pre-determined range.
-There are physical abilities, magical abilities, double abilities (affected by both physical and magical), and none. I imagine that stuff like none might be Flare or Ultima.
-By the way, the music playing is very “secret agent.”
-I can check the floor around me for traps! This reminds me of the structure in some tabletop RPGs.
-I can save at the elevator every five floors, ior use a Save Memo folio to save at the elevator on any floor. I wonder if saving heals me up the way saving at save spheres did in X and X2.
-I activate traps with the “Stomp” command. Not quite sure why I'd want to activate a trap, but we'll see. Maybe there are good traps?
-There’s an option to disable the minimap and the range display, but fuck that. I think I’ll need all the help I can get.
-The game gives some tips. I appreciate it. I’m pretty confused.
1)Don’t waste turns.
2)Check the range of attacks, abilities, and items.
3)There’s a healing target window, page 3/3, to heal a character’s HP.
4)Equip dresses in layers as much as possible.
5)Dress levels increase by combining dresspheres of the same type. This is “fusion,” and requires a Dress Fusion Secrets folio.
-Most of the status effects are pretty standard. The only new one is “gil drop,” where my gil decreases each turn.
-Oh wait, there’s more. Curse effects items, and makes them unequippable when cursed.
-BOOM affects an inventory item, and if that item is left in a BOOM state, it will eventually be destroyed.
-Omni-Guard make the character immune to all enemy damage for a while.
-A character who is knocked out…
Wait. Is this possibly right? What the fuck?
It says that a character who gets knocked out is moved outside the tower, is reduced to level 1, and may lose acquired gil and items. WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THAT PERMADEATH BULLSHIT??
-I’m pre-emptively salty. Super, super salty. I hope I’m misunderstanding this. Is it saying that if I die, the game resets basically? Am I playing an early generation NES game?
-Seriously. This has stopped me in my tracks. I hate repeating content and if this is going to just be a test of how far I can get before I die each time, I may well end up quitting before the end of the game.
[Later edit: No. I’m not going to end up quitting before the end fo the game. This just really threw me for a loop. I have to hope I’m misunderstanding this mechanic, and even if I’m not, I’ll still make my best effort to finish.]
-There’s a shop outside the tower. Inside the tower, too. And a vault/bank.
-Something says: “There is a folio that will allow you to return just as you were.” So I get reduced back to level 1 but if I use a folio after death it can give me back my lost levels/items/etc?
-Auto-abilities can be activated by layering dresses. Abilities change based on how dresses are layered. I will have to experiment with this.
-Seems like using an auto-ability enough times can create an accessory.
-Poison and Silence can be cured by taking the elevator up, but Curse and BOOM don’t get removed in this way.
-I should leave space between myself and the enemy when possible, and use the [A + Select = end turn without taking action] to let enemies come to me. Maybe that can be used to get the first hit in when they move in range.
-If a monster at the door is blocking me, it might move after a few turns.
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-Okay! That’s the tutorial. Time to dive in.
-This is exciting. The characters may be the same, but this seems like a totally new type of game.
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Next time: into the tower.
